Page 15 of The Fortunes of Ashmore Castle

‘From Vanity Fair. Lady Bexley showed it to me after church. I think she supposed I might be able to get her an invitation.’

‘Oh dear, how embarrassing,’ Aunt Caroline said.

‘It was. She gushed.’

‘I did invite them to stay here, of course,’ Aunt Caroline went on, ‘but I had no idea of the scale of his plans. I thought it was to be a neat dinner for immediate family. Excluding the children we’d have sat down twelve at table, a pleasant number I always think.

I’ve had to see Madame Hortense about a new gown, and she doesn’t like to be hurried.

How dressy do you think it will be? Do you think I should get my tiara from the bank? ’

‘Aunty, I have no idea,’ Giles said impatiently. ‘Just be glad they’re not staying here – imagine having the press gathered in front of your door day after day, photographing everyone going in or out.’

‘Have you heard any more from Maud and the prince? I understand they’re going straight down to Ashmore – probably wise after such a long journey.

They’ll need time to recover before the party.

But will they want to stay here after the ball?

You’re all welcome, of course, but I need to know who will be staying.

This is really a very small house. Eight bedrooms should be enough but not if married people want to sleep separately. ’ She looked anxious at the thought.

Giles smiled and patted her hand. ‘You do have your troubles. Ask Grandmère to take Alice and Rachel for the night.’

‘Oh, Alice!’ Aunt Caroline cried, seeing a new problem. ‘That child has nothing suitable for a dinner and ball like this. I shall have to wheedle Madame Hortense into making something for her. It will put her in a dreadful mood,’ she sighed.

‘Goodness, a dressmaker who gets upset by being asked to make dresses?’

‘You don’t understand. She’s an artist, and artists are temperamental. Has Kitty something suitable? Tell her not to leave it to the last moment. Rachel will be all right – she had trunks full of things for her come-out last year.’

‘I know. I paid for them,’ Giles said drily.

London always made him feel tired, and talking to Vogel was not something he looked forward to, even though these days the financial news was good.

Harvey’s Jam – the business Kitty had inherited from her mother and brought him as a dowry – was making large profits since, with Mr Cowling’s added investment, they had gone into five- and ten-pound tins for the export market.

Everyone wanted jam, and the ingenious managing director, Charles Logan, was even now talking with the Colonial Office about supplying it to government installations and hospitals in India.

Their prosperity seemed assured, and Vogel was a happy man, as far as he ever displayed emotion behind those gold-rimmed glasses; but numbers bothered Giles like flies, decisions made him sleepy, his stiff collar and tie grew tighter the longer he wore them, and London pavements made him feel as if he had two feet in each shoe. He was relieved to be going home.

The train soon left the suburbs behind and rattled into ever more bosky surroundings.

Trees and hedges were starting to come into leaf, blurring the stark outlines of winter; and the pastures were always green in Buckinghamshire, the greenest of English counties.

Just now he was inclined to welcome the rural peace.

His mother coming home; rows over Rachel and Alice; this damned London dinner and ball; meeting Giulia again, as wife – wife!

– of his uncle! Everything ahead of him seemed gauged to vex him.

He had not wanted the earldom or the estate, but with a day in London irritating his mind, like grit inside a shoe, the thought of walking out into his own fields with a gun under his arm and the dogs at his heels, with no-one near by and no sound but the rooks in the spinney, made him realise there were compensations.

He hoped that when he got home he could change quickly and slip out into the dusk for a walk with Tiger and Isaac, but Linda had arrived back, had found her invitation, and was waiting for him.

‘Giles! I have nothing to wear for this ball. It’s going to be in every paper and magazine. The eyes of the whole nation will be on us. The family’s reputation is at stake!’

‘You mean you want a new gown.’

‘I mean I must have a new gown. It’s imperative!’

Ah, yes, Giles thought. In the list of things lining up to vex him, he had forgotten to include Linda.

The arrival of Maud and her new husband at Ashmore Castle was keenly anticipated in one quarter.

Giddins, the head man, was in a bustle of pride and excitement.

The dowager, now the Princess of Usingen – and if anyone deserved to be a princess it was her: she had always behaved as if she was one – demanded the highest standards, and it was his chance to show his mettle.

The four matched dapple-greys (he wished they could be six, or even a royal eight) were washed and polished until they shone – and it was hard to get a grey to shine.

He stood on a box to plait their manes himself; and when the team were perfect in every respect, he stationed two boys to keep watch behind them in case one of them should cock a tail: stable stains were the very worst thing with greys.

If natural functions seemed imminent, a boy was to run in with a skip and intercept.

While not looking forward to the invasion, Mrs Webster was anxious not to have fault found.

Her tension communicated itself to Afton, and between them they chivvied the servants and checked each other’s work.

Afton looked over the Queen’s Bedroom almost as often as Mrs Webster did the Van Dyck, to make sure that anything that could possibly be wanted was in place.

Crooks, who had been valet to the old earl and now valeted Mr Sebastian, and Mr Richard when he was at home, was in a ferment of nerves in case he should be called upon to valet the prince.

‘He’ll have his own man,’ Afton said.

‘But nothing was mentioned about servants in the letter, was it? Suppose he doesn’t bring a valet?’

‘Then you’ll manage. I have every faith in you.’

‘It isn’t that he’s a prince, you understand, but that he’s not English. He might have different requirements.’

‘He’s a man, Mr Crooks. We all put our trousers on one leg at a time.’

‘That’s just it, Mr Afton. I’ve been helping gentlemen into their trousers all my life, but it takes time to get to know their little ways. His late lordship, for instance—’

‘I’m sure you’ll come through if it should be needed,’ Afton said quickly, and hurried away before he learned more about the late earl’s nether garments than he wanted to.

Miss Taylor, grim-faced, had the opposite problem: suppose the princess arrived with a lady’s maid, what would happen to her?

She had been practising walking, but too much exertion made her leg ache abominably.

Dr Welkes had taken off the cast, and had provided her with a brace to wear.

She had let down her hems to brush the top of her foot, which hid the brace from sight, but he had told her to use a stick for a few weeks, and she was sure that even if the princess had not brought a maid, she would not allow a stick anywhere near her.

Kitty was dreading it, having always been afraid of her mother-in-law. All she could do was order the best meal possible (though March was not exactly an accommodating month) and instruct that the servants should all be lined up in front when the carriage came back from the station.

‘At least it’s not raining,’ she remarked to Giles, as they waited inside the hall for the signal that the carriage was in sight.

It was grey, mild and misty. The dogs came poking their noses up and swinging their iron-bar tails, hoping that all this activity portended a walk.

‘Oh dear! She doesn’t like dogs. Afton, can you take them away and shut them in somewhere? ’

The boy they had stationed on the drive ran panting up. They walked out onto the front steps, and could see the carriage with the greys coming up the avenue, followed by the brake for the luggage and the closed cab from the station.

Giles said, ‘It puts me in mind of the arrival of the Queen of Sheba, “with a very great retinue, with camels bearing spices, very much gold, and precious stones”.’

‘Oh, I wish she did have camels!’ Alice said, from behind him. ‘Shouldn’t we be welcoming her with sackbuts and shawms?’

‘I should think you’d not want to draw attention to yourself,’ Linda told her severely. ‘Neither of you,’ she included Rachel in the opprobrium. ‘If I was you I’d keep very quiet.’

‘Is Grandma going to be cross?’ her daughter Arabella asked.

‘Not with you,’ Linda said shortly. ‘But don’t speak unless spoken to.’

‘I’m bored!’ her son Arthur, Lord Cordwell, moaned. ‘Why have we got to stand here all the time? I want to go in.’

‘Ssh!’ Kitty said sharply. She checked one last time. The maids in their morning grey, with caps; the footmen and boys in livery; old Frewing, the hall porter, proudly holding the door and at the back the nursery maids in blue with her sons, Louis and Alexander, decked in their best.

The greys, lifting their legs beautifully and arching their necks, drew the carriage up to the entrance and John Manley, the coachman, stopped it exactly at the centre.

William the first footman moved into position to open the door and put down the step.

Cyril, the second, ran round to the far side from which the tall, thin shape of the prince, wearing a voluminous greatcoat with a vast astrakhan collar and a Russian astrakhan hat, soon emerged and came round to help his princess out of the carriage.